The Lovely Madcap Orchestra Trip
by LadyMargaret
Summary: Update! Chapter 5 is up, and it'll leave you speechless! Nowhere else will you see band kids from Austin compared to leeches in the eye! And sherbet! Behold!
1. How it All Began...

This is for all those silly orchestra people (me being one of them) who have gone on a silly orchestra trip. This does not really fit in well with the Marching Band section, but to Hades with it! A Euphonium is mentioned. There you have it. Enjoy, or not, depending…  
  
The Lovely Madcap Orchestra Trip  
  
Once upon a time there was a lovely little orchestra trip. Yes, it was an orchestra trip, the kind you get when you dig around behind your classical CDs and finally come up holding that one baroque tape you lost long ago… and now it's all eaten up by bugs, anyway. That's the kind of orchestra trip it was. In short: orchestras weren't designed for trips, and neither were large bottles of vodka.  
  
However. I digress.  
  
This particular orchestra trip was a sad affair. The bassist was busy herding her little cellos together into a clump, and everyone else was trying to figure out how to get around Ross the broad-shouldered violist. It was chaos… Well, orchestra-brand chaos, in which a cold draft of air spells doom for the entire ensemble. Oh, woe is us! The cellos have all gone flat again!  
  
"The cellos are possessed!"  
  
There wasn't even a solitary percussionist to cool things down. And then there was that forgotten bottle of vodka that lay hidden beneath somebody's cushions…  
  
So they all set off on their happy pathetic orchestra trip, all twenty-four of them. It was chaotic, as was mentioned before. On the way, the bus became a crazy bombshell of activity, ready to explode at any given second.  
  
Oh, the suspense! Someone had even failed to throw away his or her foil wrapper. A clever violinist had to discreetly bring it to the front of the bus before anybody noticed. Ooh, good times! Party times!  
  
"Hello…?" asked the vodka, not daring to peek out of its enveloping nest. Nobody heard it. The insanity had already taken over.  
  
People held their breath as Elizabeth, a daredevil cellist, put a rock 'n' roll CD into her Discman.  
  
"Won't it break?" asked a cautious young violinist.  
  
Elizabeth swallowed. "No," she replied after a while, "I have seen it done before. Mozart and Beethoven would be proud."  
  
She inserted the CD into the Discman.  
  
They all held their breath.  
  
"Noooooooooo…." some foolish and frequently-ignored violinist moaned from the front of the bus. Nobody took notice of her.  
  
The bust ride continued with even more heart-wrenching tales of courage and adventure, but there is too much to tell.  
  
I shall move forward… to THE HOTEL!  
  
When one asks an orchestra student to find his or her way to his or her hotel room, this is like asking a piece of pie to find the fork. It is, without question, going to upset the place-setting in one way or another. In this case several cellists ended up outside, gazing about with a confused air.  
  
"Where's the hot tub?" one of them asked.  
  
"I don't think there is a hot tub." replied another.  
  
Then a hotel employee appeared out of nowhere (i.e. Hades) and said, "There IS a hot tub. We HAVE a hot tub." And she disappeared into thin air (i.e. Hades).  
  
The cellists, too frightened to speak, merely found their way back inside. It is said that cellos are perhaps the most absent-minded and wise of all the stringed instruments. Except of course for the Euphonium (which isn't even a stringed instrument, for Godsake. And who in Hades knows what a Euphonium even is? Should it really be capitalized? Perhaps it is some sort of hat worn by accountants. Interesting.). In any case, the Euphonium was wiser and even MORE dimwitted than the cello.  
  
All of a sudden, the cellist Meg became all of a flutter. That is to say, she felt as though she'd like to go sit down and watch a bit of Public Television for a while. (WHAT?!) For just at that very moment, the lovely and wonderful violinist Dustin had come out of his room and into the hallway.  
  
"Um…what?" Dustin asked as he fidgeted and sidled over to the ice machine.  
  
The vodka said: "Oooh… a nice refreshing pile of ice to be cooled in…"  
  
"What?" said Meg and Bethany and Teal (the other wise and absent-minded cellists).  
  
"Nothing!" said Dustin. He leapt into his room with the bucket of newly- fetched ice, and slammed the door.  
  
"Tsk tsk, such inappropriate behavior. Almost like a Euphonium."  
  
(WHAT?!)  
  
"Dustin is sooooo deliciously tasty."  
  
"Um…"  
  
Much madcap activities took place thereafter.  
  
Where is the SANITY?  
  
I shall go forward to the… CONCERT HALL!  
  
Many young and optimistic orchestra people sat in the red fluffy seats.  
  
But the vodka was back in a cabinet with the ice, feeling sorry for itself. "I'm… all aloooone… no one heeere… besiiiide me…"  
  
Dustin had (for reasons unknown {except for perhaps the keeper of Hades}) decided not to wear his extremely attractive white shirt and vest. This was to the great distress of Meg the flighty cellist.  
  
"For Godsake, wear the vest!" cried Meg, burying her face in her program.  
  
"For Godsake, you're getting your program wrinkly," complained Teal. She patted Meg on the back. "It's okay. We're having 'beverages' later. Maybe. I think…?"  
  
The vodka jumped for joy. "Yay, somebody remembered me! I'm a 'beverage!!'"  
  
When orchestras watch concerts, one could compare it to iguanas: they sit, they appear to be wrinkly logs, and they stick out their tongues occasionally. One could also use the "Elf Being Hot" analogy. When Elves are being hot, they are being themselves. When Elves are being themselves, they are being lovely and blonde and amazingly delicious with blue eyes. Therefore, when Elves are being themselves, they are being hot AND lovely and blonde and amazingly delicious with blue eyes. So there you have it, an accurate and detailed description of orchestras when they watch concerts..  
  
(WHAT?!)  
  
Nobody really enjoyed the concert.  
  
As a wise cellist said: "It was modern and jumpy and stinky and rather had that sort of modern/jumpy/stinky aroma that you get nowadays. Hmph."  
  
They all went to bed feeling put out. Except for Meg, Teal, and Bethany, who watched Arthur and Conan O'Brien.  
  
"Secrets…"  
  
Meanwhile the vodka was having the time of its life.  
  
The toothsome Dustin was as well, as were Ross the broad-shouldered violist and Viet, the (somewhat gay) violinist.  
  
Dustin tried to cuddle with Ross at one point in the night.  
  
Good times.  
  
In the morning, they all awoke to the Euphonium's shrill whistle.  
  
(WHAT?!)  
  
"Teatime!" called Grace, the other blonde violist.  
  
And so they all scurried to breakfast, and lost their tickets on the way.  
  
Except for the cellists, who ended up outside again. Only this time (luckily) the hotel employee didn't appear out of nowhere (i.e. Hades).  
  
They also didn't find the hot tub, which probably didn't exist after all. But can one really trust hotel employees?  
  
I shall skip into the future: THE BUS RIDE HOME!  
  
It was snowy and wintry and utterly Ice-Planet-Hoth-ish outside the hive of activity that was the bus. Times had become even crazier when the bassist attempted to sing hip-hop.  
  
I will only say this: The Euphonium in all its glory would have been proud.  
  
(WHAT?!)  
  
And it was then that Meg the cellist caught a glimpse of Dustin the violinist between rows of seats. And she became all of a flutter. That is to say, she felt like scaling a cliff and eating raw cabbage. (WHAT?!) For at that moment, Dustin's eyelid had twitched. Interesting.  
  
"I would make out with you right now," Dustin said, "but I'm asleep."  
  
Meg sighed. "That's all right, my sweet and squishy vest-man. Tomorrow then."  
  
The vodka was puking in the toilet, and nobody wanted to go near it.  
  
"I have a hangover, for Godsake!" it cried. They all gave it a grimace and a scowl.  
  
"I pity thou, thy tired and hung-over relic of shame. Get thy gone from us!"  
  
And so continued the bus ride of madness, until everybody fell asleep and dreamt of horrid twentieth-century composers and their wicked, wicked modern ideas.  
  
When one observes a busload of orchestra people sleeping, one is reminded of the Alps: skiers, zombies, and abominable snowmen on the loose. Oh yes, and frozen corpses far beneath the snow, from centuries long past. Much like that Gladiator movie, only with more pillows and satin napkins and paper umbrellas. But not the Euphonium, it never sleeps anyway.  
  
(WHAT?!)  
  
I shall move ahead to… THE SAFE RETURN HOME!  
  
As the bassist counted her little cellists' heads to make sure they were all intact and alive and seeing clearly, Ross the broad-shouldered violist once again clogged up the stairwell and forced everyone to go outside through the gale, and across the parking lot.  
  
It was one eventful trip.  
  
Except for the damn Euphonium, which didn't like trips and felt too good for the orchestra anyway. Damn the Euphonium. It is not as wise as it is cracked up to be. 


	2. The Wonderful Xylophone... of DOOM!

Ooooh, a new, fresh and sparkly chapter of adventure! In this new installment the xylophone cameos as the Instrument of Doom, and a certain "Scrawny Lad" goes completely flat. What will the absent-minded cellists do?!  
  
~*~  
  
Icy gusts of wind blew up the frightening band room staircase, sending the cellists into fits of deranged madness. Well, actually not… but Bethany the cellist threw herself over her cello like the mother of a newborn child.  
  
"The cellos are going FLAT!" she cried, her eyes wide like sandwiches.  
  
Nobody paid any attention to her because of the doughnuts. (Doughnuts… mmm…) It was a mad frenzy as the students made an orderly line and apologized to each other for getting in the way. As has already been mentioned, it was insane. I'd like to see someone in band fight his or her way through it.  
  
And then… there stood two braided yummy doughnuts, side by side. They were nestled together like a light-yellow house in the spring sunshine before the trees grow leaves, except these doughnuts weren't on the corner of a busy street peopled with bikers who thought they were the only ones on the road. This is what the two doughnuts were like…  
  
…And Meg the cellist HAD to have one! She dived toward the doughnut table in slow-motion, shouting "Nooooooooooooo…" in slow motion as well. The world slowed down as she crashed unceremoniously into the table. When she stood tall and proudly, she was holding the doughnut.  
  
"Yay!!!"  
  
"Hurrah!"  
  
"The cellos are POSSESSED!!"  
  
The other orchestra members called, waving their breakfast pastries like magical flags of Muffinland. (Muffinland is a land where muffins abound, bouncing about like fat cooked mounds of dough. They breed with bananas and become banana muffins, thus the name of the mix CD that Meg the cellist made last night. Also: Elves are hot.) But in all actuality they weren't waving Muffinland flags, but peacefully eating their doughnuts like good little orchestra children should. Very nice and messy.  
  
Dustin the beautiful blue-eyed dark-haired adorable cutie was eating a doughnut and looking cute.  
  
"It's wrong to make people that cute!"  
  
Then… Bethany realized that the xylophone was calling to them. It said: "Come, little cellists. Come, and experience my rich chiming sound. Come, and be one with the xylophone. Pick up the woolly mallets… Come! Come and create beautiful music with the forbidden percussion section!"  
  
"But…" Teal the cellist said, her bottom lip quivering, "But… the Scrawny Lad has gone completely flat! We… we CAN'T!" She threw her hand over her forehead and staggered into the drumset, sending the snare flying.  
  
"Noooooooo!" cried the xylophone. "Play ME… I am the Wonderful Xylophone of… DOOM!"  
  
So they did. And then the band instructor appeared out of nowhere (i.e. Hades) and said: "You vile orchestra children, was machst du?! Go and eat breakfast pastries like good little orchestra children should. And for Godsake, stop molesting the Euphonium!"  
  
The Euphonium hiccupped, and looked up from its drink of vodka. It smiled sheepishly like a llama, and quickly tossed the vodka over its shoulder, where the glass hit the wall and shattered, sending several orchestra students into seizures.  
  
"My apologies," hooted the Euphonium.  
  
(WHAT?!)  
  
And then the xylophone simply gloated.  
  
And then the cellists went back to eating pastries.  
  
And then Dustin continued to be adorable.  
  
And the "Scrawny Lad" never quite got back in tune again… ever. It's the doom of the xylophone, I suppose. Or maybe someone ought to drag the darn "Lad" out into the street and shoot it.  
  
Aaargh!!  
  
Heh… heh…. Randomness… 


	3. Vodka and Such... I Guess

A short little tidbit of madcap orchestra life. Ooooooh, madcap.  
  
~*~  
  
The bassist came up behind delicious blue-eyed Dustin, and tapped him on the shoulder.  
  
"I think one of my little cellos likes my little violin!"  
  
"Which one? What?"  
  
"Little cello #4, Sleepy. Little cellos!"  
  
"Oh, dear God," the Euphonium burped from inside its cabinet. "Did I drink all the vodka already?"  
  
The bassist smiled. "Oh, romance between my little cello and my little violin! How cute!" And then she scampered off like a monkey who overdosed on life and will probably collapse in any minute and begin to convulse before dying a slow, painful death. Actually, it was more like a monkey who overdosed on life and will probably trip over its bass in any minute and begin to convulse, but not die.  
  
Dustin looked thoughtful and adorable as he stood beside the drum-set. "Hmm," he said to himself, "Little cello #4? Sleepy? Which cello is that?"  
  
Bethany appeared before him, smiling her creepy devious smile. "I know who cello #4 is," she said creepily. "The bass is Snow White. I'm Sneezy. I'm cello #3." And she also scampered off, but she was more like an unidentifiable bouncing thing that hadn't overdosed on anything, and would probably collapse and begin to convulse in any minute anyway. But again, not die.  
  
"Hmm, Bethany is cello #3, Sneezy. Who is cello #4? If the bassist is Snow White, does that make me Prince Charming or the Huntsman? Or the mirror?"  
  
Just then the Euphonium staggered out of its cabinet and lurched toward the toothsome violinist. "Ceelllllllooooo, he he he!" it giggled, poking Dustin and hiccupping. "Ceellllooooo n-n-nnnuuummm…berrr fooooouuuuuurr!"  
  
Dustin stared at the thing in disgust. He had never seen a Euphonium drunk before, and it was turning him off. Other things that also turned him off were out-of-tune tympanis, fuzzy-leaved plants, disembodied Winnie the Pooh heads, houses that were perfect squares, and people who said they were "high on life."  
  
"He he he he! Sleeeeeeeeeeeep…py!" the Euphonium said in a slurred and high-pitched voice. "He he he heheeeeee!"  
  
"You're no help at all, you ghastly, sickening, filthy thing. Go away."  
  
The Euphonium looked hurt as it tottered unsteadily away, reminiscent of Ozzy Osbourne on a good day.  
  
Meg the cellist had been watching the ensuing events from the piano, where she was currently holding the goose key. Wait, it was a chicken key… No, a turkey key. ANYWAY, whatever type of fowl the key was, she was holding it and wondering if the Euphonium was high on life. She was also wondering what it would be like to braid an elf's hair.  
  
"Dustin is quite edible," she mumbled to herself before turning her gaze to the piano keys. "Oooh, ivory!" she said hungrily.  
  
"Those aren't ivory. Ever since elephant numbers were depleted decades ago, there were laws passed forbidding the poaching of pachyderms for their rare and coveted ivory. Those piano keys that sit before you are most likely constructed from some sort of artificial substance created in a factory run by six-year-old starving children from Afghanistan. The world these days…" The Euphonium trailed off. "What? Did I say something? Cellllloooooo! He he he he heeee!" It stumbled away from the piano.  
  
"Interesting," Meg said to herself, and took note of it in her little black notebook that was full of evil plots and deceiving schemes and other such youthful nonsense. "In…ter…est…ing."  
  
"Cello #4?" Dustin mused uncertainly to himself. "Sleepy?"  
  
"Voooood…ka! He he!"  
  
"Dear God." 


	4. Yearbooks and Clumsy Stupid Cellists

Welcome back to the madcap adventures of that cool-ass—and sometimes drunk—orchestra class. Whoo hoo!  
  
Meg the cellist peered out from behind the auditorium piano and peered around like a mole in a hole with a coal on a pole from Hades. She sat there, transfixed by the electric glare of the 70-year-old stage lights.  
  
"My GOD," she exclaimed silently to herself, lightly scratching her nose, with a thoughtful and pensive look in her glittering eye, "Have I been asleep all this time?"  
  
"No," a voice answered from the very depths of Hades. "You have not been asleep," it boomed and sizzled ominously like an elf with very little shampoo left, "You have been… AWAKE!!! BWAHAHAHAHAAA!!!"  
  
"Oh."  
  
Then the Euphonium appeared, its shiny locks bouncing in the… (WHAT?!) …wind. "I have come for you, my cellist… my cellist, heh heh heh."  
  
Meg tried to scoot deeper beneath the piano, but her yearbook was jammed in a deadly crack and would not budge. "Noooo!" screamed Meg. "I'll NEVER sign your yearbook!"  
  
"Damn." The Euphonium stalked away, dragging its bright red yearbook behind it.  
  
"You may have won the battle!," cried Meg in patriotic anguish, "But you HAVEN'T WON THE WAR!!"  
  
Now, you may ask, what is an accurate yet entertaining analogy to this heart-rending situation? Well, you may ask. And I may answer. But if you DO get an answer, what will you do with it? Do you really even NEED an answer? Does the answer NEED you? What if I were to say that the answer has already answered itself, but you were just too far away to hear it? Or what if you had just been in bed, sleeping, or with some hot cocoa reading The Amber Spyglass? And even worse, what if you had accidentally called it the Amber Compass instead of the Golden Subtle? Or…that's not right… what if you had accidentally forgotten to return your copy of Owen Barfield's Evolution of Consciousness? Do you have an excuse for THAT? Eh? Because you're NOT getting an ANALOGY!!! So there.  
  
Meg eventually freed her lovely, sweet and delicious yearbook from the clutches of the Satan-worshiping piano.  
  
"Sorry," mumbled the piano as Meg ran away (but not before kicking the piano and stubbing her toes and crying).  
  
And so, as fate has a way of messing things up and changing them round and eating lots of doughnuts for breakfast and then being offered an ice cream sandwich and being too full to eat it, so it also has a way of making itself throw up and feel better again. And this is exactly what Meg WASN'T thinking when she scampered on and ran full rib-crunching skull-smashing head-on into Dustin.  
  
The delicious Dustin. The one with hair that would have been prettier had it not been so darn pretty. The one whose laugh was so freaky that it was adorable. The one who sometimes wore shiny red and gold things to school. The one who wasn't afraid to go to school an entire week with his pajama pants on. The one who was basically the epitome of random geekiness. Oh, swoon!  
  
And so, fate decided to embarrass Meg the innocent cellist who had just been stuck underneath the piano. Oh woe! Horrors!  
  
So she ran smacky dab-dangy into Dustin.  
  
"Oh my God!" screamed Meg, reaching for something to grab hold of. With all the grace and dexterity of a practiced ballerina with elephantitis, she flailed about and latched herself onto Dustin's shirt.  
  
"Oh my God!" she wailed again, managing to pull herself and Dustin down onto the ground, where they hit with a painful thud.  
  
Dustin rubbed his poor adorable little head, and looked about confusedly. "Where am I?" he asked, his eyes unfocused like those of an eagle who has accidentally found his way into the water, and is just now realizing that he doesn't like fish for dinner, OR stupid 70's bands for that matter.  
  
"I don't know! Augh!"  
  
Meg ran away and out of the auditorium, managing to trip only thrice on her way out.  
  
The Euphonium looked up from its yearbook.  
  
"Ballerinas. Huh." 


	5. Nasssty Band Kids from Austin!

It's late, and I'm bored. that must mean it's time for. (wait for it). More orchestra madness!! Whoohoo!  
  
Behold:  
  
School is out. Meg the cellist, alone and without her dear Scrawny Lad, finds solace in the company of none other than The Macho Lad. The new cello. The BETTER cello. The shiny, happy, look-at-me-I-show-your- reflection-even-if-you're-extremely-ugly-like-Chris-Klein cello.  
  
"The plane is leaving, it's leaving, it's." the Euphonium is cut off, for unaccompanied brass paraphernalia is not allowed near the baggage claim. At this moment the Euphonium felt like a cast-off cheese hunk, a glass of cider left beside the anthill to ferment and fill with drowning ants. It's moments like this when post-its come in handy.  
  
Meg boarded the plane, and was inexplicably unaware of the mass of Texan band students pushing and rummaging and shoving their evil little way to their seats. No, could it be? Are the nasssty band kids from Texas going to sit beside poor cellist Meg? No, preciousss, we hatesss them, nasssty band kidsss!  
  
Please, at this time, do not brutally disembowel Meg the cellist. She knows no better. She has never experienced the awe-inspiring atmosphere of the band room, the hoarse and whiny call of the trumpet, the laughter of the geeky glasses-wearing freckly first chair kids. It is all a mystery to her.  
  
And when Meg came to her seat, she was pelted with the high-pitched screechy voices of dreaded kids from band! Austin band, no less! One could have compared this situation to the feeling you get when you watch Dracula 2000 for the first time because the sound of a 'vampire hunter from London' appeals to you, and ten minutes into the movie, you realize that you were horribly mistaken and that this movie is really just an excuse to fling a leech into somebody's eye; or to make you wonder why on earth you're eating sherbet, which is rather similar to a leech, or blood, if you take away the cold-ness and everything else about sherbet and add features similar to a leech, or blood. And Dracula isn't even hot! (But the vampire hunter is.)  
  
This is how Meg felt. (WHAT?!)  
  
But the Euphonium felt even worse, wedged between a fat woman and her luggage. Wait, that wasn't a fat woman. That was a shopping cart. Silly Euphonium. It needs glasses, clearly.  
  
But the Euphonium takes no crap from the general public. It merely takes crap from fancy-pants, such as Gandalf, the Best Buy tag, Princess Zelda, Mr. Darcy (who isn't even a fancy-pants), Robert Plant, Rincewind the 'wizzard', Death, Pinocchio, and Metatron the Voice of God. So don't mess with the Euphonium unless you are one of the afore-mentioned.  
  
Bwahahahaaaaaa!  
  
It appears as though Meg the cellist has fallen asleep in her plane seat, and is ignoring the band kids and their nasssty ways. Stop it, stop it! They're computer geeks, all of them!  
  
It's a pity James isn't here to tell us the time. James, what is the time? James?  
  
"I hate you all!" screamed the Euphonium. For some reason it was wearing a hat of cheese. Serves it right. 


End file.
